


Bonds and Bindings

by twinyards



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, acomaf spoilers, i'm laughing at you, if y'all expected this to be happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 08:34:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13760298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinyards/pseuds/twinyards
Summary: He knew, with sudden and burning clarity, exactly what the bastard, Tamlin, had done. The selfish, stupid son of bitch had gone too far.It had been months and Tamlin was still letting Feyre drown. Rhys had forced himself not to intervene beyond the bargain, had chained himself to Velaris and his friends to keep from killing Tamlin for being so blind and naive. Feyre was strong, he’d assured himself, she would swim. But locking her in that forsaken manner… Tamlin was no longer a bystander, watching her flounder in the water while he stood safely on shore.He was a murderer, holding Feyre’s head under the water.-Alt. a look at Feyre being locked in the manor house at the Spring Court from Rhysand's point of view down the bond.





	Bonds and Bindings

It started with a prickle of pain. Like stabbing your finger with a pin. Rhysand was startled by the small, sharp pain in his chest. It was by no means unbearable, not yet, but discomforting nonetheless. And it was not his pain.

It was Feyre’s. 

His heart shuddered an unsteady beat in his chest. Whatever she was feeling, she hadn’t meant to shout it down the bond. This was not like when she’d called out at her own wedding, pleading for an escape. Rhys had known her exact line of thinking then, every thought and emotion as clear as if it were written on his skin.

But this, the tender, rising pain he’d begun to recognize as the tingles of panic, was so very different. And it was  _ growing _ .

Across from him, Mor faltered in her line of speech. She’d been feeding him Az and Cassian’s latest reports, but now she stopped. Something in his expression had let her onto his discomfort. 

“Rhys?” She asked, but he didn’t answer her.

He was exploring the bond, trailing tender fingers along the tether that bound him to another soul, in another court, somewhere so terribly, terribly far out of reach. Rhysand had only just begun his exploration when a scream ripped through him, sending him back a step on unsteady feet.

The scream hadn’t been his. 

It had been inside his head. And now he could  _ feel _ it, that panic, as if it were his own. Vision of Under the Mountain assaulted him without warning, making him grind his teeth in rage and roil his stomach in disgust. A rotting arm and a dank, damp cell. The claw of under deep in his gut and the crushing weight of exhaustion. The overpowering, soul shattering fear of wondering if you’d wake up in the morning.

He wanted to push the images away. He wanted to seal his mind in a palace of black adamant and regroup his thoughts, but he wouldn’t. Because they weren’t his thoughts. They were  _ hers _ . Feyre’s. Somewhere in the Spring Court, she was screaming. 

And he could hear her in his head.  _ He trapped me. He locked me in. Another prison.  _ Repeating on an endless loop. 

Rhysand was familiar with pain. He was familiar with pain. He was not familiar with this. Never had his emotions been so sharp, so acute and scathing and bone crunching in their severity. And with every moment the pain worsened, the fear intensified. Agony leached into his bones and burrowed into the marrow, a parasite making its home in his body where he could never hope to reach. Terror filled his lungs, thick as oil and twice as heavy. He was choking on it. 

He knew, with sudden and burning clarity, exactly what the bastard, Tamlin, had done. The selfish, stupid son of bitch had gone too far. 

It had been  _ months _ and Tamlin was still letting Feyre drown. Rhys had forced himself not to intervene beyond the bargain, had chained himself to Velaris and his friends to keep from killing Tamlin for being so blind and naive. Feyre was strong, he’d assured himself, she would swim. But locking her in that forsaken manner… Tamlin was no longer a bystander, watching her flounder in the water while he stood safely on shore. 

He was a murderer, holding Feyre’s head under the water. 

A snarl that was nothing short of animal ripped itself through Rhys’ body. Everything hurt; his bones, his marrow, his flesh, his skin, his teeth, his hair. But rage burned brighter than the pain in his body. 

“That bastard,” the words rumbled through him. He didn’t realize he was crying until a lick of salt water caught on his tongue.

Mor was still standing before him. Her whole body shocked still with mortification and worry and curiosity. “Rhys?” She asked again, this time with a heavier press of urgency. 

“He locked her in.”

The words left his mouth without permission. His feet moved of their own accord, his power reaching out to winnow, to go to her, to kill that Spring Court bastard the moment he laid eyes on him. But Mor was there, clenching her fingers around his wrist with a stormy expression.

“You can’t just winnow into the heart of the Spring Court,” she hissed. “Tamlin already loathes you, and we do not need an excuse for him to start a war.”

He turned a furious gaze on his cousin. 

“I am not leaving her there.” Rhysand snarled, and hated himself for it. He could feel Feyre still, struggling and sobbing, but the image of her had gone dark. He was horrified by the possibilities. “You don’t understand -”

“She is your mate. I understand enough.” Mor chided him. She set her spine, looking more like his Second in that moment than his cousin. “I will go. I’ll do it by the book. I’ll bring her back.”

Rhys heaved a breath, his first real taste of air now that there was a plan. He was bringing Feyre back to the Night Court. She was not a prisoner. He was going to help her heal. She was not a captive. 

They exchanged a few words of planning. 

“Do it,” he managed to choke, clenching his teeth against Feyre’s agony and his own, twining together to become a tidal wave of anguish and rage and hurt. There was nothing quite so extraordinary as sharing someone else’s pain. There was nothing quite so twisted, so awful, and yet so beautiful. 

Mor vanished. 

A few seconds later, Rhysand followed. 




Rhys waited. And waited. Every moment was a shard of glass under his fingernails and a knife in his ribs and acid in his veins. Mor had gotten there, he could feel Feyre’s panic soothing, ever so slightly. It did nothing to soothe him.

He was wildfire; burning with rage, aflame with guilt. He’d left her with  _ Tamlin _ . Tamlin, the traitor. Tamlin, who’d killed his family. Tamlin, who shared a bed with Rhysand’s mate and had the gall to call it love when he trapped her like a prisoner. 

Feyre’s thoughts, whether she meant them to be or not, were so often open to him. Rhys knew she’d been waiting for the mating bond to snap into place between her and Tamlin. It had a caused him a terrible sort of grief, to know she longed to be destined for another, and had no idea she was destined to  _ him _ . But he’d stayed silent. He never let on that he felt the bond, that anything he knew or felt or understood without being told was simply a consequence of the bargain they’d struck. If Feyre loved Tamlin, if she was happy with him, than Rhysand would let her be. 

That was the difference between the two High Lords. There were bonds, and there were bindings. Tamlin had wrapped Feyre in pretty dresses and bows to hide the manacles he’d slapped against her wrists. She was a jewel to add to his appearance, something rare and precious he did away behind lock and key, not because he loved it, but because he feared anyone else having it. Tamlin bound Feyre to him with promises and apologies and guilt and sex. 

Rhys loathed him for it. More than he did for anything else. And it wasn’t just because Tamlin’s actions were disgusting. It was because whether or not Tamlin thought he loved Feyre, Rhys loved her more. 

They were heart and soul, fire and water, wind and earth, sea and sky, sun and moon, day and night, beginning and ending. They  _ belonged _ together. And it wasn’t just because of their powers. It wasn’t because he was a powerful high lord and she the most power fae he’d ever seen.  _ Like calls to like _ . But it was more than that. 

Soul calls to soul.

Feyre was his mate because they’d both been the worst of Amarantha’s prisoners. They were dreamers lost in a predatory world. They were something different and mystical and ancient and new. No one like them had ever existed before. No one like them would ever exist after they were going. 

They shared a  _ bond _ , a string between their souls. Not a binding, not a chain between their bodies. 

And it was that bond that had made Rhysand unable to leave Feyre in the Spring Court while she sobbed and screamed and writhed in agony. Her pain was his pain. Her fear was his fear. Her life was his life.

Every millisecond separating them was an infinite torture chamber. Rhys was getting ready to damn it all to hell when Mor appeared at the entrance to the cave. He strode forward easily, and his heartbeat only began to slow when Feyre opened her eyes, caught sight of him, and seemed to relax ever so slightly.

“I did everything by the book,” Mor said, answering the unspoken question in his eyes. 

Rhys slid Feyre into his arms, pulling her from Mor and finding his skin electrified when Feyre tucked herself against him. “Then we’re done here,” he told his cousin. He did not wait to see what she would say, what he would do. 

He cloaked himself in tender darkness, lulling Feyre into as peaceful a sleep as he could provide, and winnowed himself back to the Night Court, his home and his heart tucked safely into his arms. 

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope y'all liked this! It's the first thing I've ever written for the ACOTAR fandom, so I'd love your feedback. In typical fashion, be sure to leave comments or kudos if you enjoyed this.


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